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Welcome back to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome and not at all well-written. Need your YA industry news? Never fear, Kat and Kate are here to give it all to you. Just, ya know, not in any kinda sophisticated sense or nothing.

In this week’s Buzz, adults should apparently be ashamed of reading YA, Oprah to narrate her own book, Harry Styles fanfic is getting published, and Diana Rowland fans are angry over new Zombie show.

Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly news post bringing you all the best information about the book and blogging world, particularly for the venn diagram of people who overlap between the two. For new releases and cover reveals of all the best Young Adult fiction, check out our Sunday post: Hot New Titles.

Ridiculous Article is Ridiculous

Another day, another elitist genre snob publishes a redundant piece of tripe about how adults should not read children’s books. As a review site aimed at adults who read YA, we are suitably unimpressed but unsurprised. This happens so often, usually published by sites desperate for the rage click-bait that will occur. Still, here’s some annoying quotes for you so that you don’t have to go and read all of it for yourself.

Today’s YA, we are constantly reminded, is worldly and adult-worthy. That has kept me bashful about expressing my own fuddy-duddy opinion: Adults should feel embarrassed about reading literature written for children.

Hint: You’re not a fuddy duddy. You’re just short-sighted and ignorant. I hope that makes you feel better.

Fellow grown-ups, at the risk of sounding snobbish and joyless and old, we are better than this. I know, I know: Live and let read. Far be it from me to disrupt the “everyone should just read/watch/listen to whatever they like” ethos of our era. There’s room for pleasure, escapism, juicy plots, and satisfying endings on the shelves of the serious reader. And if people are reading Eleanor & Park instead of watching Nashville or reading detective novels, so be it, I suppose. But if they are substituting maudlin teen dramas for the complexity of great adult literature, then they are missing something.

Nice little jab there at reading speculative crime fiction. What a champion! Any more genres you want to insult while you’re at it?

A few months ago I read the very literary novel Submergence, (Emphasis not mine)

No, for real, she emphasised that. Slow clap for Ruth, everybody!

Naomi Watts in Insurgent

Naomi Watts will be playing Evelyn in Insurgent, the leader of the Fractionless. The actress has a busy schedule. After jumping in to film Insurgent, which has already started, she’ll be racing off to film Sea of Tress with Matthew McConaughey. Her other newbie, Octavia Spencer will be joining her and the other actors reprising their roles. I don’t know what else to say about this, so… yeah. STOP LOOKING AT ME!

Margret Atwood Series is coming to HBO

Darren Aronofsky, of Noah directing fame, is looking to possibly direct a miniseries out of the trilogy MaddAddam. It’s been reported that Atwood will be joining the production as a consulting producer. The trilogy, Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam is certainly going to be trippy for viewers to watch! But I can’t wait to see some Atwood brought to the miniscreen!

Harry Styles Fanfic to be Published

Easily becoming one of the inane things I’ve read this week, a piece of Harry Styles Fanfic has been acquired by Simon & Schuster for a reported mid-six figure deal. The story, After is also being shopped around to sell the movie rights. No news yet on whether they’ll approach Harry Styles to play Harry Styles but I imagine Harry will be too busy rocking back and forth in a corner saying, “Do. Not. Want” over and over again.

Oprah Narrates Her Own Book

When the Queen of TV does anything it’s worth talking about and this time Oprah has taken on the role of narrator for her upcoming audiobook What I Know For Sure.

The book, a collection of the column of the same name Winfrey penned for O, The Oprah Magazine, will be published simultaneously with the hardcover on September 2. The hardcover is the launch title for Macmillan’s Flatiron Books.

“We are thrilled that Oprah Winfrey will be reading her audiobook,” said Mary Beth Roche, president and publisher at Macmillan Audio. “Throughout her career, Oprah has created unparalleled connections with millions of people. Listeners to the audiobook will appreciate hearing the thoughtful insights shared in this book in Oprah’s own voice. It is sure to be one of the most powerful and sought after audiobooks of the year.”

I can totally see this working, except that Oprah has a really soothing voice. I predict masses of insomniacs using this to get to sleep at night.

Reading Rainbow Makes a Comeback!

If you ask any of the kids in my family of bookworms what their favorite show as a child was, they will answer, “Reading Rainbow!” without hesitation. That theme song will be forever emblazoned in my memory. Many of you may have heard about the kickstarter project that the Reading Rainbow folks started to raise money to expand their tablet app into classrooms and PCs. Well, it totally kicked ass.

Reading Rainbow is coming back, on computers and in the classroom. As of today, a Kickstarter to bring the show back has raised more than double its initial goal of $1 million. That’s enough cash to bring the educational program back as a cross-platform app, complete with a digital library, interactive resources, and virtual field trips—and to offer it for free to cash-strapped schools. “The fact that so many people have become a part of this, and are donating $1, $5, $10—this is, I believe, a response to the need for people to feel like they can make a difference,” Burton wrote in a Reddit AMA earlier today. “It’s been interesting, because along this journey we have heard from many people in terms of our business model—do you think Reading Rainbow is still relevant? Yesterday proved beyond the shadow of a doubt the relevancy of Reading Rainbow‘s mission.”

So, Apparently Zombie Shows Are a Thing Now?

It’s tough in this age of everybody knows everything, and gossip travels so quickly to have an original idea these days, and it looks like former Veronica Mars producer Rob Thomas as he preps for his newest upcoming CW show, iZombie. iZombie is based on a comic book series of the same name, but it seems that Thomas has deviated from that script a bit and wandered into another author’s territory. Here is the original description for iZombie (via goodreads):

Told from a female zombie’s perspective, this smart, witty detective series mixes urban fantasy and romantic dramedy. Gwendolyn “Gwen” Dylan is a 20-something gravedigger in an eco-friendly cemetery. Once a month she must eat a human brain to keep from losing her memories, but in the process she becomes consumed with the thoughts and personality of the dead person – until she eats her next brain. She sets out to fulfi ll the dead person’s last request, solve a crime or right a wrong.

But as I said before, Thomas has deviated a great deal from the original storyline. But here is Thomas’ own words on the subject:

“We’re not sticking that close to the comic,” the creator of Veronica Mars tells IGN. “The thing that we’re taking from the comic is this mid-20s female zombie who eats brains and gets the memories of the dead, but we put her in a coroner’s office, so there is sort of a ‘case of the week’ each week where she gets snippets of memories of the deceased and tries to solve the crime.”

Gwen, has now become Liv, who has taken a sharp turn toward Diana Rowland’s White Trash Zombie series. Which features a 20 something Angel Crawford, who works in a morgue, solves murder, and crushes on the local sheriff’s deputy. And apparently, the similarities are enough that Rowland (and her many fans) have taken note.

To all who've msged me abt the CW iZombie series: Yes, I’m aware they changed the comic’s premise to one v. similar to White Trash Zombie

There was actually a link to Rowland mentioning how she’d talked to her lawyer and contacted Rob Thomas (only to hear nothing back), but that has now been taken down. So maybe there is a deal in the works. I haven’t read Rowland’s series (though it sounds like something I’d be interested in), so you’ll have to judge for yourself what the truth of the matter is.

The Hachette/Amazon Fight To The Death

Place your bets, people, because a rip roaring battle of epic proportions is coming to a town near you, as Amazon and Hachette publishing duke it out over money, power, and the rights to rule the book world. Or something like that. Maybe you haven’t heard of this story. Maybe you’re living in a walled compound that has no internet connection (in which case, how are you even reading this?). Well, here it is in a nutshell: Amazon and Hachette got into a disagreement over something and now books from Hachette are either unavailable or have really long wait times for shipment. Amazon has stopped ordering a lot of Hachette stock for their online bookstore. Oh, and Amazon also kicked Hachette in the balls, so there’s that.

“If you order 1,000 items from Amazon, 989 will be unaffected by this interruption,” reads a press statement released by Amazon last week. “If you do need one of the affected titles quickly, we regret the inconvenience and encourage you to purchase a new or used version from one of our third-party sellers or from one of our competitors.”

Now it looks like Hachette has done some sort of tag team with its buddy Walmart, and the supercheap superstore is offering the books in its own online store.

“Earlier last week, Walmart reached out to customers to alert them about the online, in-stock availability of their favorite books from Hachette Publishing Group,” a Walmart spokesperson wrote via e-mail. “All books are available online at the everyday low price, which is 40 percent off the cover price.”

It also looks like Target and Barnes & Noble are following suit. The big question is, who will this fight hurt more in the long run: Amazon or Hachette?

Penguin Random House Unveils Something Boring

After like a bazillion years of being a couple, Penguin Random House has finally announced their marriage in a formal release of their new logo. And here it is… Well, it’s alright, I guess. I mean, if you want to look all LEGITIMATE and everything. But I was really hoping for some sort of penguin eating a house shenanigans. Ah well. If you are like me and you imagined something else, here are some of the interesting alternatives they could have gone with:

The Hunger Games Just Officially Became a Movement

I love it when good books become like infectious viruses, floating through the world and marking everyone with their power. Such is the case for Suzanne Collin’s Hunger Games series, which believe it or not, has been read by protesters against the recent military coup in Thailand.

If life does imitate art, Thais may have reason to worry. The Southeast Asian nation’s ruling junta is pondering whether to officially ban the three-fingered “District 12” salute from TheHunger Games, now that is has become an emotionally charged symbol of resistance among opponents of the May 22 military coup.

Already, scores of those proffering the salute during weekend street protests have been dragged off by troops, in scenes eerily reminiscent of the Suzanne Collins novels and movie franchise, which depict a dystopian future society ruled by the totalitarian Panem regime.

My God, Collins just must have chills running up and down her body when she reads these stories. This is amazing and awesome and brilliant. To think that one small symbol from a futuristic YA novel has become the signal for hope and change in a country across the world, it’s just crazy!

And over the weekend, the sight of unarmed and peaceful protesters being detained for flashing three fingers — including a woman draggedinto a taxi by plainclothes police in tourist-thronged central Bangkok — did little to assuage fears of what the military may have in store. Brad Adams, director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, calls theHunger Games salute “a symbolic act of peaceful defiance” amid a situation that “is spiraling downwards in terms of rights abuses.” “The fact that the [junta] is closing down sections of the city to chase a handful of protesters reveals a totalitarian mind-set that discounts respect for human rights as a hindrance, and sees youthful defiance as the enemy,” he said by email.

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Kate Copeseeley is the Buzz Worthy News Correspondent, occasional reviewer, and a bonafide bookslut®. She can be found haunting Goodreads, writing The 100 fanfic, and neglecting everything else in favor of burying her nose in a book.
Visit her on Goodreads.

Oh my god. I love everything on this post! First the Slate article. God, what Ruth Graham thinking? Ugh. I wrote a post on that today on my blog with all of my rants. I hate ignorance.

Harry Styles fanfic? Ew. Please, no!

But the one that stole the bacon goes to the Thai revolt you mentioned above. Oh my god. I didn’t even know that was happening, and then to see people actually adopting that symbol, and OMG I just have chills running over my skin. This is sad and disturbing, and dare I say it? intriguing.

Ilex

Is it just me (since I’m pretty sure no one else will admit they watched it), but does iZombie also sound a bit like Tru Calling, just without the time rewind/saving lives part? (Or maybe all shows about girls working in morgues and solving crimes end up sounding alike …)

Re Slate article: I liked the part in the beginning where she made it clear that she didn’t even deem it necessary to discuss speculative YA because obviously fantasy and sci-fi are books to be embarrassed by, it’s not like they can reflect questions about morality and humanity through alternative worlds and histories…. 😉Anya recently posted…Sci-fi and Fantasy Friday {ARCs and $5 Giftcards Weekly!}

To me, her opinion is her opinion. But don’t devote half your opinion piece to telling adults what they should WANT to read, and HOW to read, and how to PROCESS what they read. I put in my time in college English. I don’t need another teacher, thanks.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the Harry Styles fanfic thing. I’m sincerely happy for the author, but writers work for hours on original ideas and they may not get as good of a deal as she has. And I can only imagine how the real Harry Styles must feel.

I don’t know how I feel about fanfic being sold as fiction. On the one hand, no one can truly say they have an original idea, because you can’t help being influenced by others. On the other hand, fanfic is rather a blatant use of that influence. At least with Amazon Worlds the authors get some money from it.

When I read ‘Harry Styles Fanfic to be Published’, I thought Fanfic that Harry had written was getting published lol!

How terrible it must be for those people in Thailand. We read dystopian novels for entertainment but there are real countries going through that exact type of situation. Breaks your heart.Rochelle Sharpe recently posted…Fiction Friday: Review: The Minnow By Diana Sweeny.

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